About Me

My Experience:

I have pretty much been involved in law enforcement all of my life. I started out in my younger days as a store investigator where I investigated internal and external thefts. I became one of the top investigators having some of the highest amount of arrests. This was one of my most favorite jobs but it wasn’t a career oriented job. So I returned to school and studied administrative justice at the Santa Rosa Junior College.

During that time, I volunteered for the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department. I started doing data entry and participated with their neighborhood watch programs throughout the county. I believe this gave me an advantage to getting hired as a Sheriff’s Aide with Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department. I worked at the Sonoma County North Detention Facility managing a laundry work crew of inmates. I worked there approximately one year. I took a lot of pride in the job. I ran a “tight ship.” Everything was organized, I even had inmates sewing and repairing clothing. I conducted searches all the time finding the usual extra clothes, workers selling clothes, extra food, and even a few more interesting occurrences. I caught several inmates escaping at the fence line behind our laundry room, also I found a folding pen knife in an inmates bed, and I had caught drugs coming into the facility. Those were the highlights.

In the early 90’s, it was harder to get into law enforcement. There were a lot of hiring freezes and a lot of competition. I could not afford to pay my way through the academy, so getting an entry-level position was a lot harder. I tested with San Francisco Sheriff’s Department and at the time, I think there were about 400 other people testing for the same position. I originally applied for deputy sheriff, and during the process I received a letter stating the position had changed to a lower paying position. This was the beginning of the 8302s. I was disappointed in this news, but I was still interested and continued testing.

In 1994 I was hired as a San Francisco Deputy Sheriff and started my training at the San Francisco Police Academy. I was part of the 11th Regional Class. I was also elected as Class President of the 11th Regional and I coordinated information from the SFSD Training Unit to my classmates. Also as Class President, I made an awesome tee-shirt with the help of a SF Police Officer from our class. This shirt was a hit and everyone wanted one. To this day, I occasionally think about recreating it. Here is a picture of my academy class. That’s me on the top right of the academy picture.

In 95, I was assigned to the brand new jail, County Jail 8 now known as County Jail 2. I worked with some great deputies and we took are job very serious. It was a great crew. About two years later, I transferred to the new booking facility County Jail 9 now known as County Jail 1. I made my very first arrest as a deputy sheriff at County Jail 9. During a search of a newly booked inmate, I found “crack cocaine” hidden in his mouth. This was also my very first court case and conviction in San Francisco. Later, I became a member of the Emergency Service Unit which was led by Lt. Kennedy at that time.

In 96, I remember going to several DSA meetings, Sgt. Waters at that time, was the president. I have always been the type of person that makes suggestions and submits ideas for the betterment of the department and association. At that time Deputy Dorn had been working on starting the K-9 Unit with the DSA. Once I heard this, I was able to get additional policy and procedures on K-9 Units from other agencies and I submitted them to the DSA to help get that started. I also put together a group order for my fellow deputies to get everyone a discount on Police Magazine, a great magazine by the way along with American Police Beat.

As time passed in 1997, I had the urge to work the streets and do patrol work. I moved on to the Marin County Sheriffs department were I worked for 3 years. I told them about SFSD and they liked the idea of the Emergency Service Unit. Next thing you know, Sgt. Chatman, Deputy Fode and I started the Marin County Special Enforcement Unit. The Special Enforcement Unit did a little more than the ESU, when I was there we did warrant services, mutual aid, surveillance, extra patrol, and investigated human trafficking/prostitution. I attended many of the DSA meetings and helped with there Christmas event. It was a good experience but I wanted something faster paced.

In 2000, I started with San Rafael Police Department. SRPD is a great department, very cutting edge with equipment and technology, always focused on training and professionalism. I worked there for 6 1//2 years. I patrolled every area of San Rafael and worked with some of the best police officers around. I am proud to say while patrolling, I had a knack for catching burglars. This became my interest and specialty. The majority of time, I conducted my own investigations on cases I received and/or developed. I enjoyed and specialized in fraud and violent crime cases. Also, I went to many of their POA meetings.

Towards my sixth year with SRPD, I had built a growing marketing and sales business in my spare time outside of work. This business grew rapidly and expanded internationally into 14 countries. I started making 5 figures a month part-time, and as my business expanded internationally I took the chance and left law enforcement all together to grow my sales/marketing business. I had over 1000 people on my sales team in approximately 14 countries and I had 2 offices in Thailand, also my team had offices in New Zealand and Trinidad Tobago. I primarily visited those three countries to support my largest teams. I was in Thailand practically every month growing our organization. The remainder of the countries I conducted business via phone and web conference.

I have done a lot of public speaking in this field whether it was training events or promotional events. The largest group I spoke to was in Sacramento California in front of an audience of approximately 500 people in 2007. In 2008, when the recession hit, it took its toll on my sales business. I was paid 100% commissions, so during the recessionary times my commission checks decreased as less sales came in. This happened to most sales industries such as real estate officers and loan agents. So I decided to return to law enforcement and get my career back.

In 2008, I returned to the San Francisco Sheriffs Department. I have been there ever since. I started work at County Jail 3. Once County 3 closed I was transferred to County Jail 2. It was interesting returning to County Jail 2, that was where I initially started my career in 1995. It felt like I came full circle returning back. After some time, I took a satellite position at SFGH. I enjoy working there with a great group of deputies. Several days a week I also work at the Sheriffs Patrol Unit.

Since 2008, I have been helping the association, mostly with webpages and online marketing. Also I am always making suggestion to the association for the betterment of the membership. In 2009, I negotiated a deal with a community software company and they had donated a $600 software to the association. The association used this software for a couple of years, then changed to another company. In 2011 I assisted in the Sheriffs Election with online marketing, webpage development, managed a video production crew and assisted at events.

In 2014, I boosted our Facebook Fanpage from 300 likes to currently over 2.700 followers. In 2015, I had the idea of creating a positive public relations webpage promoting heroic actions of deputies, http://SanFranciscoDeputySheriffs.com. Also in 2015, I recreated the association webpage and separated the members site for security purposes. The new association page I created, I search engine optimized and achieved better webpage ranking and search engine results under more important search terms to increase our traffic. UPDATE: February of 2017, the DSA took down the public relations site, and hired a full time website management company.

In 2016, I made a decision to do more for the association. I started attending the association meetings in Jan and by February I decided to become a Shop Steward. In February, I researched which I believe is a valuable tool that should be used to better our wages, retirement, secure our jobs, and add additional jobs to our department. This tool other agencies have used to their advantage. The tool I am referring to is using ballot initiatives. I placed this idea on the February association general membership meeting agenda and gave a presentation on the subject at the meeting.

This same tool SFPOA/PD had used it approximately 157 times, and SFFFA/FD had used it approximately 140 times. We SFDSA/SD, however, have used this tool 15 times. At the general membership meeting on February 9th, I spoke about how this idea came about from a simple conversation with other association members at SFGH. That day I started the Ballot Initiative Committee. After a month of research, I taught the Executive Board, Shop Stewards and members that were at the meeting how to place a ballot initiative on the ballot for vote at no cost.

In April, several members and I proposed a bylaw update. For ease and security purposes, we proposed to update a 1999 bylaw article to modernize our voting process. Approximately 250 members signed our signature drive to update the voting process. We are currently working on this to make it happen. Also in April I started a Shop Stewards Training Tips email. I send training tips on Roberts Rules of Order and other important topics to the shop stewards.

In closing, I would like to say I am a person with experience, a person you can depend on, a person that will voice your concerns and represent each and everyone one of you, a person that will put in 110% is the type of person you need in serving as your DSA President.